Categories

War

February 10, 2017

I’d like to thank anyone who gave me their thoughts and opinions (in person or through email) about the first three installments of this Professionalizing History series. In the last installment, Part 3, I discussed the differences between empathizing and sympathizing with history, referring to an incredible conversation overheard in the hallway one morning. If you

June 20, 2016

Lasting from the late 1970s and pursuing into the 1980s, the videotape format war influenced the modern world through intense capitalistic competition between the models of consumer-level analog videocassettes and cassette recorders. The two sides? The Betamax and the Video Home System, commonly referred to as the VHS. It’s kind of amazing to think of this in a “historical” sense. But, it’s also how modern technology works. The VHS won this war, becoming the dominant home video format for a period of time, but ultimately it would become obsolete on its own terms.

June 8, 2016

Dear leader! The faux-fascists and white angst populists in America have to finally come to terms with the fact that their so-called leader is basically on the same level as Kim Jong Un in North Korea. North Korea has basically backed the presumptive Republican nominee with the induction of a propaganda website praising him as a “prescient presidential candidate” who can liberate Americans from living in fear of a nuclear attack.

May 22, 2016

During July of 1940, the people of Berlin were delighted with Hitler’s promises of success. France had collapsed after six weeks of fighting, and German troops stood on guard throughout Europe. Norway and Belgium, not to mention Poland, were under occupation. All that stands between Adolf Hitler and dictatorship of all of Europe is Great Britain. Conquest seems to be only a matter of time. Winston Churchill announced that Britain was unconquerable and that “the curse of Hitler will be lifted”, and for some period of time the British never thought of losing.

April 24, 2016

On September 1st, 1939, sixty three German divisions and over 2,000 planes advance into Poland. The German’s armor make them entirely unstoppable. London and Paris are entirely furious at Hitler’s advancement. The ideas of the Treaty of Versailles and the laws set down after The Great War had been ignored. On September 3rd, 1939, war is declared against Germany — although the assemblies were not unanimous towards the idea of war at the time. The atmosphere wasn’t as enthusiastic as the first war during these assemblies. According to many, the people of Britain and France were concerned with what was happening before their eyes.

March 30, 2016

We live in a society that applauds war crimes but has skepticism towards healthcare. We live in a society that worries about people starving to death, yet lets corporations throw away thousands of pounds a food every day because they weren’t sold on time. We live in a society that is so greatly worried about resource management, yet allows oil companies to rob our environment of both life and resources. We live in a society that hates the idea of abortion yet also hates the idea of giving everyone the basic needs of life.

March 20, 2016

When we think of world domination, we oftentimes think of countries that have strongholds on land mass. How much of the world has been painted with their flag? While this won’t necessarily be the perfect explanation for what the empires stood for or accomplished, it’ll be interesting to see what nations had at least the slightest chance to dominate the world in one form or another. There are thousands of empires to choose from, so I’m going to focus on five of them.

February 26, 2016

When one studies history, they are usually battered and bashed through bloody battles that have taken place throughout time. Oftentimes it is easy to begin seeing people as mere statistics through this method of studying. We focus on the death and the progress of war and tend to downsize life and the progress of peace.

February 18, 2016

How is saying “Diplomacy > War” a socialist idealism? How can you label someone a “socialist” based on the simple fact that war is bad? That’s the problem with most of these Cold War Republicans. They’re so outraged by anything liberal that they’re willing to shut down anything that sounds human. I was going to ignore this guy, but then I checked his profile. He proclaimed himself to be “pro-life”, just like any modern day Republican in America.

February 6, 2016

Sweden maintained a policy of neutrality throughout World War II. Although the fate of the great Scandinavian state was, in the very least, unclear at the beginning of the conflict, Sweden managed to maintain official political neutrality throughout it all. A combination of geopolitical location (the Scandinavian Peninsula proved to be fruitful during this period of global uncertainty) and successful diplomatic factors (realpolitik) during the unpredictable timeline of the Second World War allowed Sweden to sit through, in short, a Cold War.